Tip of the hat to the woman I overheard talking on her mobile in the DFW airport this summer:
“And we were, like, going to go on this rilly cool tour of the prison outside Santa Fe? But it was, like, totally sold out?”
After I got over the cognitive dissonance (prisons? tours? upspeak?), I quickly googled and found…yes, the New Mexico Corrections Department runs tours of the “Old Main” prison facility outside Santa Fe. (Go check out that link now: There are two more tour dates this season.)
Which was still a little hard for me to grasp, actually, because that prison, which is no longer in use, was the site of one of the country’s worst prison riots, in 1980. Thirty-three people were killed, many in really grisly ways, and the whole facility was taken over by the prisoners for a while.
I was seven years old then; we lived about 45 minutes down the road. I happened to overhear the grownups talking about what went down, and happened to see photos (a family friend, unfortunately for her, was a paralegal with the state attorney general’s office and had to deal with all the materials). Let’s just say I learned a bit about man’s inhumanity to man, with a blowtorch, at an early age.
So…now it’s a tourist attraction? I was confused, but I booked tickets for Peter and me later in the summer.
Main entrance to the State Pen, opened in the 1950s.
A lot may have hinged on our particular guide, a retired guard who started work in the facility in 1981, not too long after the riots.
Our guide in action.
His experience kept the tour from seeming morbid or voyeuristic.
The tour itself was done in interesting way, telling the hour-by-hour story of how the riot began and developed. You couldn’t really make up a worse set of unfortunate factors and bad management: recently installed but untested “bulletproof” glass; an unsecured construction site in one cell block (that’s where the blowtorches came from); prison policy that dressed “vulnerable” prisoners (pedophiles, snitches, etc) in different-color jumpsuits, and so on.
Clocks above the cell blocks were set to the times of key turning points in the riot.
Woven in were details about how the corrections department learned and changed following the incident.
These details included not just practical things, such as the more secure way they store cell-block keys now, but also “softer” stuff, all the various programs for prisoners and the like.
One goal of these tours, I realized at the end, was perhaps to explain to people why treating prisoners well is a far better idea than treating them poorly. Even my mother, who is a pretty liberal lady, said when we were talking about the tour later, “Well, prison should be terrible.”
Inside the Protestant chapel in the prison.
Actually, no, these tours seem to be saying. If prison is terrible, it makes people do terrible things–and then these brutal people will get out of prison and live right next door to you!
So, yes, please, teach the gang leaders how to decorate cakes that they can give to their kids when they visit. Yes, please, have prisoners grow vegetables and run a printing press and sew boxer shorts for the other inmates.
It seems to be working. The woman who spoke to us at the end of the tour said recidivism in New Mexico is only 48 percent–which sounds not so great, but the national rate is more like 75 percent.
The view out.
So, here’s to being soft on crime, or at least on criminals. Thanks, NMCD–I certainly never thought I’d be inside that building and hear the full story I did.
Hey kids–the new edition of Moon New Mexico is out! Check it out if you’re planning a trip around the Land of Enchantment. I covered thousands and thousands of miles last year, in a dinky rental car, to bring you all the news.
There’s a new section on the bootheel of New Mexico, way down in the southwest, and a lot of other nifty little finds. I love that, ten years in to working on this book, there are still new places to explore in the state.
That link above leads to Amazon, which is not the greatest, I realize, especially now that Perseus, which owns Moon, has been acquired by Hachette. Consider the link for info purposes only–hit up your local bookstore instead.
Speaking of local bookstores, I will be at Bookworks in Albuquerque on August 17, at 3 p.m., to talk about the goodness of the guidebook, show some pics from recent trips, and generally answer questions. Mark your calendars!
The last few years, I’ve really enjoyed doing the end-of-year wrap-up. This year…it’s a tiny bit of a strain.
That’s not because 2013 sucked. It’s because I stayed home a lot, with my butt in a chair, staring at a computer screen. (See previous post.) The “writer” part of “travel writer” was the main thing going this year.
To that end, Highlight #1: I finished my $%#$#$%#$–I mean, fabulously stupendous and thrilling!–book draft. It was a little anticlimactic. One imagines triumphantly running laps to cheering crowds. Instead, one presses ‘send,’ then turns to all the other crap that has piled up in months of neglect.
(Does this mean you will very soon see my book on store shelves? No. Getting a book into book form takes a good long time. Anticipated publication date is February 2015. Please keep your breath bated till then!)
I wasn’t in NYC for the entire year. I went to New Mexico several times, which yielded some great moments. Highlight #2 was doing one of my dream stories, eating my way around Silver City, New Mexico. Thanks to the New York Times travel section for publishing the results! The story was, for a thrilling moment, the seventh-most-emailed on the NYT site, and someone hated on me on Twitter for it! You know you’re coming up in the world when you’ve got a Twitter hater…
On my second trip to New Mexico (why so many? Because Jet Blue started direct flights to Albuquerque!), I camped out at my mom’s for a while and wrote, and then, Highlight #3, Peter and I spent a few days at Los Poblanos. This may very well be my most favorite hotel in the world, and believe me, I never thought I’d be saying that about anything in my hometown. They have the cutest damn goats. And a lovely restaurant. This is the first time in my life I’ve done what felt like a grownup resort vacation. Paid real money. Lolled around the pool. Drank wine with our friends. Visited the goats. I wouldn’t want to do it alllll the time, but I can see the appeal, when it’s somewhere with taste as good as Los P’s.
Then, Highlight #4, Peter and I traveled overland and car-less from Albuquerque to Vegas to California. Why? Just to see if we could. We took Amtrak to Williams, AZ, then took the tourist train to the Grand Canyon. At the Grand Canyon, we hopped on the return flight of a scenic-tour plane to Las Vegas. We were the only people on there with luggage, and top in my little file of smug travel moments now is the one where the pilot was like, “What? You flew one-way? You don’t have a car?” and gave us a thumbs-up. That made up for walking around Vegas in record-high temps. Then we flew to SFO (sorry, no snazzy workaround there), attended a wedding by bus due to the BART strike, and finally, took Amtrak to Los Angeles, on the fab Coast Starlight. The whole thing cost marginally less than if we’d rented a car, so that’s also in my file of smug travel moments. On the other hand, it costs a damn arm and a leg to travel in the U.S.! Now I know for sure that our trips to Thailand are in fact cheaper, including airfare.
Highlight #5 came on my third trip home (yup, on JetBlue), when I went waaaay down to the far southwest corner of New Mexico. That’s all in a post here. NM is my mainstay guidebook title (new edition from Moon coming in the spring!), and it’s great that there are still spots I haven’t seen. And they’re so damn beautiful.
After the last NM trip, I buckled down at home. Strangely, that was Highlight #6, writing–a very distinct thing from Highlight #1, which was finishing. In fact, the actual writing should be Highlight #1, and being done with writing (for now) should go farther down the list. After I managed to get myself focused and settled down, I really did enjoy spending a good six or seven hours every day messing around with words.
And my industrious fake-office-job schedule meant I had the evenings free, so I managed to do Highlight #7, painting my living room. My friend Amy picked the color, and it is beyond fabulous.
Benjamin Moore Venezuelan Sea, if you’re curious.
(I also finally finished painting the dining room–astute readers of this blog may remember the Bollywood dining room as a highlight of, er, 2009.)
Oh, and Highlight #7.5, because this isn’t a design blog, but we got a new dining room table and chairs. The chairs I bought in Raton, New Mexico, and shipped home and still paid less than anything here in NYC. More and more, my guidebook jobs turn into shopping trips.
That’s about it for 2013. Today, as this posts, I will be on the way to Rwanda, followed by a few days in Ethiopia. Switching gears entirely.
Happy new year, and best wishes for all new destinations and ever-more-comfortable home bases!
You know I have a thing for old hotels. Not just olde historicky hotels, but what I call vintage hotels.
One of the “rules” I have about vintage hotels is that they can’t be renovated to be old-timey–they just have to be that way. But after this last trip around New Mexico, where I spied some exceptionally good old motels, I think I have to lighten up a little bit. The people who are working hard to preserve them–which also involves some renovation, because they’re so far gone–deserve some credit.
Tucumcari, on the east edge of the state, is a great little outdoor Route 66 museum, starting with the Blue Swallow Motel. It may be the oldest surviving motel on Route 66 in New Mexico, and the owners make sure it feels like 1939, right down to the old black phones. Previously, this place was owned by an electrical engineer who fixed up the neon, and before that, it was owned by the same woman for something like forty years.
Just across the road is the Motel Safari, from a slightly later era, also very nicely re-old-vated.
I especially like how the old sign has been redone to mention Internet and flat-panel TV.
And down the road is the Historic Route 66 Motel, which to be honest, I was only able to peek out through cracks in the drapes, because no one was in the office, but I dig the floor-to-ceiling windows.
And just to give you an idea what the alternative is, let’s take a look at some of the motels in Tucumcari that haven’t been treated so kindly. Restrain your sobs, if you can.
That last one might be the worst, just because it was aiming so high. The Taj!
Raton, up on the northern edge of the state, is also a hot spot for great old motels. (What is it about border towns?)
Less dreamy: the iron-fisted owner (required of a good vintage hotel; and actually, she was very nice, just intense about cleaning) retired, and sold the place to a new crew. No idea if they will keep the place up, but I am suspicious because their eyes did not light up when I asked about the saunas. They more like frowned, at the thought of how much maintenance they will require, and how many annoying people will roll up asking about them. On this visit, I left the place heartsick with worry.
But then! Just down the road, on the south side of Raton…is the delightful Robin Hood Motel.
It’s lovely and lemon-yellow, and has lovely flowers planted everywhere and a teeny-weeny pool and a woman who’s run the place for ages.
And then and then, even farther down the road, is this place.
I almost didn’t stop. I was pretty done with Raton by then. But something made me turn around and drive in. Here was the office:
Look at that paint job. Look at how orderly those little cactus pots are! Good signs.
I rang the bell, but no answered. I walked around the corner.
Aaaagh! I might have done a little dance right there in the empty parking lot, to release the overwhelming cute-oldness that was squeezing my heart. But it didn’t work, because then I turned around and saw these screen doors!
(Please note how the *hose* is even color-coordinated!!!)
I felt a little like I was in a fairy tale when I went over and peeked at the screen doors. The inside doors were open! To let in the fresh breezes! I could see right into the rooms, and the beds were covered in powder-blue chenille spreads. And I’m practically crying while I write this. Everything was so intensely perfect, and not museum-like or kitschy-retro. I felt like if I’d opened up one of those doors, and walked in, I might never have gotten out of 1958.
But no one was around. I scuffed back to my car, got in, and drove away. But! Just as I was turning onto the highway, I saw a truck pull into the driveway of the motel, so I made a loop-de-loop back.
“Are you the owner?” I asked the guy in the truck breathlessly. He was old and weather-beaten and wore overalls.
“Yes, it’s my place.” He spoke just enough to let on that he had a German accent. What? Who comes from Germany to run an ancient motel? There was so much I wanted to ask him, but I just got the prices and went on my way. Kicking myself now. Planning my return trip soon, to sleep under one of those blue chenille bedspreads.
Thank you, Maverick Motel owner. You made my trip.
This trip, I made a beeline for the southeast quadrant of New Mexico, just to get it out of the way. Historically, let’s just say I haven’t been bursting with enthusiasm for this part of the state. There are tremendous natural attractions out here–Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands–but a whole lotta nothin’ in between, and if you go too far east, it’s like you’re in Texas, in a bad way (i.e., it smells like cows and oil).
BUT, lo and behold, it turns out that if one goes to the southeast first, when one is full of pep and vigor, and one’s eyes haven’t yet been dulled by hundreds (nay, thousands) of miles of scenery whizzing by at 70 miles an hour, then the southeast has a lot to like.
First up, Tucumcari. Which is barely southeast. It’s on I-40, not far from Texas, and the billboards all say “Tucumcari TONITE!” It’s one long strip of old motels, and honestly, I had never stayed the night there before. This time I settled in at the Blue Swallow Motel (more on this later), and chilled the heck out.
At the Blue Swallow
It was the golden hour, so all the ruination of Route 66 was looking immensely scenic.
Note the warning: You toucha my truck…I breaka you face.
(The person who did up this truck used to have a junk shop in a repurposed restaurant–the sign said Doofnac Xemi. Alas, it’s shut.)
I had some chicken-fried steak for dinner, garnished with a piece of kale. Yes, kids, there is still a part of the country where kale is just a hardy decorative green thing. If you want something green, have some Jell-O. Though to be fair, there is a farmers market in Tucumcari, and it was hopping.
Some of the farmers selling at the market also own the Odeon on 2nd Street.
“The Heat” was hilarious.
Before cruising out of town the next morning, I happened to see the world’s most wonderful murals on the wall of a public pool.
There’s a baby burro with a floaty mat around the corner.
Next stop, Fort Sumner, where maybe the guy who did the WPA mural in the courthouse could’ve used a little bit of that lighter touch from Tucumcari.
What is going on here? I just don’t know.Hotsy-totsy.
In Clovis, I visited the Norman & Vi Petty Museum, commemorating the work of the producer behind Buddy Holly. It was all about the tubes.
Mmmm, those are some darn fine knobs.
And with my not-yet-road-damaged eyes, I could really appreciate this excellent example of bank architecture.
Bet they still give Dum-Dums to the kids…
Portales, peanut basin of the Southwest, has redone its movie theater.
But why it’s called the Yam, I could not tell you.
In Carrizozo, Roy was still mixing chocolate ice-cream sodas at Roy’s Gift Gallery, and my favorite sign in all of New Mexico was still there.
Now improved with an old truck and a donkey.
Up in Cloudcroft, I drove the Sunspot Highway and looked down on the wasteland of southeastern New Mexico. Not too shabby.
That white streak across the middle is White Sands.
This year was the third time I’ve updated my New Mexico guidebook. You’d think I would’ve gone pretty much everywhere by now, since New Mexico is not a heavily paved state and there are only so many roads to drive.
But in fact, there was a whole stubby little bit of the state I’d never set foot in–the so-called bootheel, which sticks down in the southwest corner. The closest town on the interstate is Lordsburg, which might explain why I’d never driven down there. Lordsburg is a pretty dismal ex-railroad town, with so much chain-link fencing that it kind of saps your strength to drive farther.
On my guidebook research trips, I try to put a couple of roadblocks in my schedule, to force myself to slow down and take a periodic break. So I booked two nights at the Casa Adobe, in Rodeo, New Mexico.
I wish I could’ve stayed a week. The house was lovely, and there’s no cell service in Rodeo, and no internet at the house.
And the light…ahhh.
Rodeo is just a mile or so from the Arizona border, and Cave Creek Canyon, which is famous as a great birding spot. I mean, famous in birding circles. There is something uncanny about the Arizona border–somehow the instant you cross it, the scenery gets better than what was on the New Mexico side. I’m not sure how they pulled that off. These mountains, just on the Arizona side, were freakishly lush and vibrant.
The trade-off, though, is you have to deal with Arizonans and their immigration panic:
(My New Mexico is such a hippie New Mexico that I didn’t even realize until the government shutdown that NM’s southern district had elected a Tea Party wackadoo to the House of Representatives. So the immigration panic isn’t limited to Arizona, I now understand. It’s just NM doesn’t have any warning signs on the highway…yet.)
On the second day, I drove back up to near Lordsburg and visited Shakespeare ghost town, which is open only once a month or so. On the way I stopped at the gas station, and saw this critter:
Imagine my thumb next to him for scale. BIG dude. Locusts! In little coral-colored bikini tops, they kinda look like.
Shakespeare is fascinating because it’s really nicely preserved, but it also has this layer of more modern history, of the family that has owned it for a few generations. One woman taught dance classes there for decades, and one cabin is lined with recital photos–worth the price of admission.
Quiet moment in the lynching room…anticipating the gun fights later.
Also at Shakespeare, I learned that the freakishly colored locusts are actually perfectly adapted to a landscape made of volcanic rock and mine tailings.
The really nice thing about being in Rodeo, in the middle of nowhere, for two whole days, is that I appreciated Lordsburg a bit more when I came back. There are a couple of good cafes, after all, and some choice neon. And the museum has a really good exhibit on German WWII POWs interned around here. And they were practicing roping at the fairgrounds.
If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I went to be a cowgirl in Rodeo…
Sorry–summer break lasted a pretty long time. Sugar Duck just told me in no uncertain terms that he was tired of being laughed at by the whole internet, so we’ll bump him down a post.
I spent a lot of the summer in New Mexico, working on my book about Arabic and updating my New Mexico guidebook. In the past, I’ve been a little mealy-mouthed in the guidebook about when the best time to visit is. Oh, all the seasons have their merits, blah blah blah (except spring; dry, hot, windy spring).
After this last trip, at the end of August, though, it’s just ridiculous to claim there’s any better time to visit. I drove around for about four weeks just gasping out loud, to myself, “It’s so GREEEEEEEEN!”
I haven’t been in New Mexico at the end of the summer in years, and I had forgotten how much a couple of months of decent rain can transform the landscape. I came back from my trip and raved to Peter too. “It was so GREEEEEEEN!” I told him.
This is the first photo I showed him. Valley of Fires, near Carrizozo
Funny, he wasn’t all impressed. “But, but, that’s, like, a volcanic wasteland normally,” I spluttered. So I showed him some more photos.
The northeast, the edge of the great plains, was green.
That one didn’t do it either, really. “That looks terrible,” said the city slicker. All I could say was “Well, it is where the Dust Bowl was.”
View from Two Grey Hills Trading Post
“This is the Navajo rez,” I said. “Look how green!”
“Enh,” said Peter, noncommittal.
Red Rock State ParkZuni Mountains
“C’mooooon, look: Gallup! Totally green.” He was starting to come around. “Look–by the Very Large Array. Where the deer and the antelope play!”
The Plains of San Agustin
Peter: “Ohhh-kaaaaay.” Finally, I just cheated and showed him pictures of up north, where it’s green almost all the time.
Rain in Tierra AmarillaClouds on Taos Mountain
My last few days were during the crazy rainstorms that flooded so much in Colorado–and tons in New Mexico too. The clouds were wreathed on the mountains like this everywhere–I felt very briefly like I was in Hawaii.
But Peter still wasn’t wowed. I agree, the photos aren’t totally capturing it. You really need before-and-after pics. But I was wondering if Peter might just be color-blind.
Then this pic came up.
In Fort Sumner
“Mmm, green chile!” Peter said. Well, not color-blind.
And this, my friends, is the other reason the end of the summer is the best possible time to visit New Mexico. It’s green chile season. Hot DAMN. Like I said, I haven’t been there this time of year in so long, I forgot how intensely wonderful it is. On this trip, I even stopped in to Hatch, the self-styled green chile capital of the world. It was hopping. Packed with farmers and people in pickups who’d driven up from Cruces to buy 40-pound sacks of chile.
A little chile strip-tease for you…Ooooh yeah, that’s how I like it…Here you go, honey. Feast your eyes.
The deal is, you buy your 40-pound sack, and then the guy at the store–or in the supermarket parking lot, or wherever you’re doing your chile deal–tosses them all in a roaster, and lets it spin till the skins are all blackened.
Action shot. This would’ve made a good Vine.
Then the roaster dude tosses your blackened chiles in the cooler you brought, and you drive home with your loot, and you sit around and peel all those little f–kers until your fingers sting (gloves, what?) and in the process you accidentally touch your eye, or your nose, and then you wrap each chile up carefully and freeze the whole haul, to get you through the winter.
Hatch smelled so damn good. The smell of roasting chile is like a little Proustian overload for me. I was standing all swoony by the roaster, and told the guy, “Wow, it smells so good.”
He just looked at me, kinda tired, and didn’t say anything. I guess if you work all damn day for the whole month of high chile season, it doesn’t smell so good anymore.
I exercised my privilege as a tourist and breathed in deep some more, bought some salsa, and then went and stuffed myself at El Bruno’s, in Cuba, where every year a team of ladies sits under the cottonwood tree out back and peels those little f–kers all day, every day, until they have enough to last the rest of the year at the restaurant.
I’m sorry that this post is long and has relatively few pictures. I know that other air-travel nerds will read it. The rest of you, I don’t blame you if you skip it and come back next week (more about Mexico!).
JetBlue–which I like to think of as my local airline, because its HQ is just a few subway stops down the tracks, at Queens Plaza–started direct service between JFK and Albuquerque on April 22. I booked tickets immediately upon hearing the announcement, in the winter. (Actually, I only booked them one way, because the return is a red-eye, and I am 40, and I cannot hack that any longer.)
It wasn’t until I was getting close to the day of departure that I realized I was going to be on the inaugural flight. One clue was that I had gotten a strangely solicitous and personal phone call from a JetBlue rep asking if it was OK if they changed the flight time to a few hours earlier. “Why, yes,” I magnanimously told them, “by all means.” I left out the part about how I don’t have a day job, so what do I care? They gave me a $50 travel credit for my suffering, and asked if that would be sufficient. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to placate me like that.
The morning of departure, I emailed my old roommate, who is more of an air-travel nerd than me, and asked if he’d ever taken an inaugural flight. What could I expect? I was imagining the back third of the plane taken up by mariachi bands, free-flowing margaritas, etc, etc. Aaron said no, he’d never done this himself, but he emailed me this link.
Well, I admit I was a little deflated. It didn’t look very glamorous–though airport lighting can suck the glamour out of anything. But there might be cake! I packed my bags and hiked it to JFK.
(Now, here is where I’d like to respectfully suggest that JetBlue change the flight to depart from LGA. Because that’s right by my house. JFK is a schlep. I mean, if they’re asking my opinion about the flight times and all…)
Anyway, I got to JFK, eyes peeled for special treatment and cakes. Au contraire: The Albuquerque flight wasn’t even on the board, and when I asked the security guy if I should be worried about that, he said, “Oh, what? Weren’t they calling that an hour ago?”
I had had that very personal convo with the JetBlue lady, so I did not panic. “Uhhh, wait, gate 15,” the security guy finally said. Which I guess is the gate for special occasions, because that’s where the party started.
That party was catered by a very well-meaning but clueless NYC operation. A buffet table was draped with those stripey Mexican blankets, and the guacamole was spiked with pineapple. There was orange-mango juice. And churros. And, horror of Tex-Mex horrors, chili con carne.
Sorry. Just awful photos. I was not as well dressed for the flight as the folks in these pics.
Enh, whatever. I’m used to people thinking New Mexico is Mexico, or Texas. And you go to Albuquerque with the caterers you have, not the caterers you wish you had. It was nice to see a cute buffet, surrounded by people in suits all congratulating each other. From the adjacent gate, passengers on a delayed Buffalo flight looked on with envy.
One excellent-ly Albuquerque detail was a poster someone had made of the Sandia Peak Tramway emblazoned with the JetBlue logo. That made up for any lack of green chile, which I couldn’t realistically have expected anyway.
Said poster in foreground. The tall guy in the background is the mayor of Albuquerque.
There was an American Girl doll making the rounds. Apparently the new one is from Albuquerque.
Around boarding time, the speeches began. Mayor Berry of Albuquerque was there to personally welcome us all. There was an awkward ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Awkward because those are big, kinda fake scissors, but they still have to really cut. That’s the American Girl doll, not a live baby, in range of the scissors.
And then we all got on and settled in. The captain made a speech about New Mexico history, which made me a little verklempt. So did the guy wearing a big turquoise bolo tie.
One nice thing about travel in New Mexico is you can always get a nice glass of bubbly, because the really good winery Gruet is based in Albuquerque. And lo–the head flight attendant let us know that they’d be passing out free glasses of Gruet sparkling wine. And there were beers from Marble Brewery in the back, free for the taking. Free booze–this officially trumped the DFW-BOS flight!
Because I had read that other post about the BOS-DFW flight, I was primed for games and prizes. I had made mental note when the captain said this was JetBlue’s 77th destination city, and I had a few other bits of B6 trivia up my sleeve.
But the big prize (a balloon ride and free nights at the excellent Andaluz hotel, and tix on JetBlue) was for a guessing game about how much fuel the flight was using. I am embarrassed to say that I was off by a factor of 7. The woman next to me, who spoke no English (‘Que es?’ she asked me; ‘Es un juego, sobre gasolina,’ I told her), guessed much better.
The rest of the prizes were given bingo-style, based on our seat numbers. This meant a lot of second tries, because JetBlue employees were in lots of seats. I’d guess the flight was about three-quarters full, with maybe a third of the people having some official reason to be there.
Mayor Berry had a custom apron with his name on it, and he passed out snacks. Let’s just say his main qualification for being a flight attendant is being tall enough to reach inside the overhead bins. The woman next to me went Terra Chips-less.
See? Pretty tall.
I had gotten to shake hands and even swap cards with the mayor, while we were waiting to board. He joked that he had “begged” the JetBlue CEO to start flights. It’s probably my own built-in insecurity I have about the relative importance of Albuquerque in this world, but I imagine this might be slightly true.
When we were close to Albuquerque, the captain let us know that we’d be welcomed by fire trucks that would spray the plane with water. It’s an industry tradition, apparently, for inaugural flights, called a “shower of affection. (“We’re trying to change that,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed. I’m not the only one who thinks this sounds vaguely dirty?).
Our approach was great–way up north, then circling back south and flying low over the Sandia foothills, right up against the mountains. If we hadn’t left NYC about 45 minutes late (mechanical issues; slightly embarrassing), we would’ve hit at prime watermelon-pink time. It was still beautiful. Definitely worth rescheduling the flight time for.
When we deplaned, we were greeted by the mayor, yet again (poor guy, dashing here and there to his marks!), and a group of Pueblo people in their full dance finery. A guy was playing a flute, and we all got colorful corn necklaces. (I’d been wondering what the NM equivalent of a lei would be! Of course–corn necklaces. I don’t think I’ve had one of those since elementary school.) The Sunport staff was all standing around in matching yellow polo shirts, waving and saying welcome.
Again, verklempt. I always get a surge of affection when I get off the plane in Albuquerque–there’s something good about the airport, even. And it was 10 times that on that night.
My mom had said, “Where do I meet you?” She didn’t know whether JetBlue had a labeled spot in the arrivals lane at the airport. She needn’t have worried.
Nice! Although note the inconsistent type style. Visual argh.
So, we never got any cake. But we did get goodie bags with some very silly goodies. (A giant plastic JetBlue cup–was that some kind of dig at Bloomberg?) I gave my brother the freeze-dried green chile stew, but I kept the Sunport luggage tag, and the mini version of the tramway poster. Whoever thought that up is a genius.
Thanks, JetBlue. Thanks, Mayor Berry. I hope this flight keeps running. It makes me proud to be from ‘Burque!
On my birthday, I went to Gallup, New Mexico. Not a typical place for celebration, I realize, but I’m kind of fond of how this town has developed in the last decade. There are murals everywhere, you can get handmade moccasins, the county courthouse is cool Pueblo Deco, and there are demonstration dances on the plaza in front every single night during the summer.
These dancers were from Zuni, just south of Gallup. Most of the crowd was local, or American Indians from other reservations.
Another thrill, for my vintage hotel fixation, the El Rancho is one of America’s finest examples. The desk clerk has a pompadour and a bolo tie, and the rooms are named after Hollywood stars who came to the area to film in the 1940s. I slept in James Cagney.
It’s true, I didn’t go to Gallup just for my birthday. I was also on assignment to write about the flea market that takes place every Saturday, from about 10am on, in a big gravel lot on the northwest side, just off the highway that used to be 666. I visited once before, and I was so thrilled about all the cool stuff there that I made this haul video.
What I really noticed about the flea market this time is how it reflects Gallup’s roots–and I don’t just mean its Navajo ones, as Gallup is the “Indian Capital of the World” and where everyone from the rez comes to sell crafts and stock up at Walmart. The town grew up when the railroad came through in 1881, bringing all kinds of enterprising immigrants from everywhere.
So the majority of shoppers and vendors are Navajo—grandmas in velveteen skirts alongside teenagers in giant T-shirts and calf-length denim shorts, carrying pit-bull puppies. But there are also Mexican vendors—selling tacos, handmade Navajo-style clothing in inexpensive fabrics and even sacks of green chile. In July, green chile wasn’t yet in season in NM, but it’s got to come from somewhere, right? Why not drive a truck up from south of the border, filled with chile from hotter climes?
And I saw young Arab girls in headscarves—no idea whether they were new to town, or had deep roots here. Arabs and Muslims from the Balkans came to Gallup very early on, and there’s a big mosque right on Route 66. And then there were the missionaries—still active now as they were more than a century ago, though the current vocal bunch take a particularly strange form. And as if to round out the archetypal Wild West market vibe, I even saw one stand run by very-new-to-town-looking Chinese people, selling imported tchotchkes like paper lanterns and frilly fans.
The main reason I went was to write about the food, which you just don’t see anywhere else. Here’s some “kneel-down bread”—ground-up fresh corn packed in a husk and roasted.
These are so cleverly wrapped up in corn husks, they look just like regular ears of roasted corn.
I asked the woman selling it if it was called that because you had to kneel down at a metate to grind the corn. “No,” she snapped. “That’s just what it’s called.” It reminded me of when I’d asked in Zuni why the bread was shaped that way and got similarly stonewalled. Later, I felt a little vindicated when I was eating my mutton sandwich, and the Navajo woman next to me at the table pointed to the kneel-down bread stand and said, “It’s called that because ladies used to have to kneel down to grind it on the metate…” But next time, I’ll try not to pry.
At Diamond “T” Grill, people were seated expectantly at tables before the signs are even up, waiting for lamb ribs and achii (sheep intestines around strips of fat) straight off the grill. When I asked the grillmaster if I could take a photo of his work, he cracked, “Did you set your camera to Navajo time?”
That's achii in the foreground.
There was plenty else I wished I’d eaten. Not necessarily because it looked tasty–honestly, Navajo food can seem a little Spartan, and it appears to value the sensation of sheep fat coating your mouth. But just because where else, and how else will I ever taste this stuff? It’s a portal into another world. That’s what makes the Gallup flea so special—and heck, worth a birthday trip.
Bonus birthday give-back for my copy editor friends. Slightly misguided proofreader marks from Route 66 in Gallup, on a wild Friday night:
Whoo-hoo! Free stuff! I just got a big ol’ box of copies of my new Moon New Mexico guidebook, hot off the presses.
And you reap the benefits: I’m giving away four copies, so you can get your summer travel planning started right. To enter, just leave a comment below by Monday, April 4 at midnight (end of the day Monday). I’ll pick four random numbers that day.
I’m not judging the quality of your comments, but it would be fun for everyone if you told us where your favorite place in New Mexico is, where you’d most like to go or how old you were when you finally realized New Mexico is part of the United States.
